Dataviz

Seeing the invisible? There's an app for that

bioephemera — Thu, 08 Sep 2011 11:12:20 +0000

Seeing the invisible? There's an app for that

This video from Xperia Studio very effectively conveys how data visualization can both leverage and challenge our conceptions of "reality." The night sky we've seen since childhood, like everything else we see, is just a tiny slice of the spectrum - only what we can perceive with our limited physiology. An app that lets us "see" otherwise invisible wavelengths is not merely a prosthesis that cleverly enhances our sensory perceptions, it's a tool to expand our worldview, by reminding us that what we see is only a limited subset of the whole: we could as easily see quite a different world, and quite a different night sky.

Full disclosure: I'm mad that I can't get this app for my iPhone! But if you're an Android user, you can try the free Invisible Universe app here.

If you can't get the app, you can still enjoy the video, which is really very pretty in the best "science-is-awesome" sense. Josh Peek nicely captures the addictive nature of research: "probably every six months or so, I get the sort of hair-standing-on end thrill of knowing something new about the universe that nobody else knows yet." Yes, I remember that feeling . . . except the things I discovered involved screwed-up mutant fruit fly neurons - not quite so awesome as galaxies and cosmic radiation and freaky supernovae. But I digress - how deliciously steampunky is that observatory wheel apparatus? And watch for the Darwin fish cameo! :)

From Xperia Studio.

bioephemera Thu, 09/08/2011 - 07:12

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Helping Vermont [bioephemera]

sb admin — Tue, 06 Sep 2011 07:00:00 +0000

Helping Vermont [bioephemera]

Photo of Vermont highway courtesy of Kyle Cornell

Last week, I had my long-awaited vacation semi-ruined when, thanks to Hurricane Irene, my flight back from the West Coast was cancelled. I had to rent a car and drive across the country in a rush - not my favorite way to spend three and a half days. But based on what I saw passing through New York, and what I've heard about the damage in Vermont, I can't complain: flooding has overturned homes, isolated entire towns, and destroyed everything some families own.

Vermonters are a notoriously self-sufficient bunch, and I haven't seen that much publicity for disaster relief, so I asked my friend -- a native Vermonter who drove home a few days ago to help clean up and deliver supplies -- what I should do. These were some of her suggestions for simple ways to give:

United Way of Chittenden County: donate via Vermont211.org (there's a "donate" button on the left sidebar, it goes through PayPal)

Vermont Foodbank: Donate $10 to the Vermont Foodbank to pay for food that will go to food banks in communities most impacted by Irene. Text the word FOODNOW to 52000 to make a $10 donation that will show up on your next cellphone bill (this was even easier than PayPal!)

Vermont Farm Disaster Relief Fund (accepts PayPal - click on the pink box "give now" - or check)

Vermont Irene Flood Relief Fund: raising money for flood relief for small Vermont businesses (click on "donate" in the top bar for PayPal and other options)

I know for many of us, money is tight (you would not believe what it costs to rent a car one way cross-country), but do consider giving something if you can spare it.

sb admin Tue, 09/06/2011 - 03:00

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Greg Dunn's golden neurons [bioephemera]

sb admin — Fri, 26 Aug 2011 23:40:59 +0000

Greg Dunn's golden neurons [bioephemera]

Gold Cortex
16 x 20, 2010
Greg Dunn

I used to have a beautiful gold Japanese folding screen, which was purchased by my great-grandmother's feisty sister on a trip in the 1920s. I loved the gold patina and the surprisingly modern impact it had on my wall. At the moment, it's loaned to a friend, but looking at Greg Dunn's artwork, I couldn't help but be reminded of the best aspects of my screen: the gold leaf, crisp black patterns, and way that the scene seemed half natural, half abstract.

The biggest twist Greg, a 6th year graduate student in neuroscience at the University of Pennsylvania, places on the screenpainting tradition? He paints neurons, as well as trees and branches. Often it's hard to tell Greg's neurons from other natural features: his cortical neurons look like delicate spring branches, and his retinal neurons are reminiscent of rosehips. At a first glance, could you tell if his Hippocampus, below, was a slice of stained brain or a quarter of a dandelion?

Hippocampus (detail)

18 x 24, 2008

Greg Dunn

The UCSD Neuroscience department commissioned a series of Greg's paintings depicting hippocampus, retina, cortex, and Purkinje neurons. The collection is just stunning, and although you can't purchase the originals, you can get large (16x16) prints for just over $120. I want!

UCSD Hippocampus II

42 x 42, 2010

Greg Dunn

Greg, a self-taught artist, will finish his PhD soon; he plans to make art an integral part of his career. I wish him much well-deserved success (and hope he doesn't run out of prints before I can buy mine.) Note that he will consider commissions, so if you want to get a particular kind of neuron as a unique gift for a researcher, neurologist, or graduate student, you should contact him and ask.

More: buy prints of Greg Dunn's neuron paintings

A review of Dunn's exhibition "Neurons and Nature"

sb admin Fri, 08/26/2011 - 19:40

Science visualization for scientists (for a change)

bioephemera — Tue, 09 Aug 2011 06:54:40 +0000

Science visualization for scientists (for a change)

"Magnetic Field Outflows from Active Galactic Nuclei"
P.M. Sutter, P.M. Ricker, H.-Y. Yang, G. Foreman, D. Pugmire/ORNL

Wired has an article/webgallery of award-winning scientific visualizations which is worth a lunchtime visit. (Having trouble with Wired's interface? The videos collected there are the winners from SciDAC 2011's "Visualization Night" challenge, so you can also just watch them here.)

These visualizations are not your usual public-facing educational animation. Rather, they're just what you'd see at a scientific meeting - dry, functional, aimed at a specialist audience, and begging for added explanation/narration. Basically, they're animated scientific posters.

There's certainly nothing wrong with that. First, it's good to see how visualization can be used within the scientific community to enhance dialogue. Second, it's fun to watch something cryptic and guess what it could represent. "Active Galactic Nuclei," for example, are "the powerful outflows associated with supermassive black holes in the centers of clusters." (Now you know exactly what's going on in the image above, right? No?) Wired adds, "This model shows an AGN's magnetic field lines about 6 billion years after the Big Bang, and it occurs in a cube roughly as big as the observable universe." That's a little bit better, although envisioning a cube as big as the observable universe is not gonna happen in my little brain.

I'd love to see an exhibition of these animations playing on a loop in a plain white gallery space, with their credits and titles snipped off, so the audience would have to guess which was which from the curator's list. Could you tell the difference between wind turbine wakes, blood flow, magnetic fields and "radiation hydrodynamics"? Well - probably; the blood cells and propellers are dead giveaways. :) But still, science produces some mysterious video artifacts.

bioephemera Tue, 08/09/2011 - 02:54

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I liked you better before your PhD

bioephemera — Sun, 24 Jul 2011 21:28:02 +0000

I liked you better before your PhD

The New York Times did a special Sunday supplement on graduate programs. The editorial graphics they commissioned have much truth to them, grasshopper.

bioephemera Sun, 07/24/2011 - 17:28

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Rebuilding the past, virtually: The Buddhist Cave Temples of Xiangtangshan

bioephemera — Sun, 03 Jul 2011 18:34:50 +0000

Rebuilding the past, virtually: The Buddhist Cave Temples of Xiangtangshan

From the Smithsonian, a short video about using technology to virtually reassemble ancient art from fragments long carried away and dispersed:

Majestic sixth-century Chinese Buddhist sculpture is combined with 3-D imaging technology in this exploration of one of the most important groups of Buddhist devotional sites in early medieval China. Carved into the mountains of northern China, the Buddhist cave temples of Xiangtangshan were the crowning cultural achievement of the Northern Qi dynasty (550-77 CE). Once home to a magnificent array of sculptures--monumental Buddhas, divine attendant figures, and crouching monsters framed by floral motifs--the limestone caves were severely damaged in the first half of the twentieth century, when their contents were chiseled away and offered for sale on the international art market.

The show runs through July 31, 2011.

bioephemera Sun, 07/03/2011 - 14:34

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This is actually fracking good

bioephemera — Thu, 12 May 2011 12:51:32 +0000

This is actually fracking good

I was playing The Fracking Song last night about midnight, and my boyfriend was grooving to it. At the end he asked, "what was that about?" "Uh. . . fracking."

"Which kind of fracking?"

Yes, we are a BSG household.

Anyway, it may be an explainer, but it's actually quite a nice little piece of music too. And I'm a sucker for good typography any day.

Is your fracking attention span longer than 2:33? Then go dig around in ProPublica's fracking investigation. "The Fracking Song" is by members of Jay Rosen's NYU graduate journalism class. Nice work, guys!

bioephemera Thu, 05/12/2011 - 08:51

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Science in Culture & Policy

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Yikes!

Call for NeuroDataViz!

bioephemera — Fri, 06 May 2011 20:52:20 +0000

Call for NeuroDataViz!

Daniel Margulies of the NeuroBureau, an open neuroscience community, shared this opportunity:

The Brain-Art Competition 2011

Submission Deadline: 11:59PM CDT, Sunday, June 5th, 2011
Award Notification: June 28th, 9PM at the Cirque du Cerveau Gala (OHBM Annual Meeting), MusÃ©e National des Beaux-Arts du QuÃ©bec.

In order to recognize the beauty and creativity of artistic renderings emerging from the neuroimaging community, we are launching the first annual Brain-Art Competition. Countless hours are devoted to the creation of informative visualizations for communicating neuroscientific findings. The Brain-Art Competition aims to recognize this often unappreciated aspect of the publication process, and highlight the artistic creativity of our community.

We are inviting researchers to submit their favorite unpublished works for entry. Both team and single-person entries are welcomed. The competition will have four award categories:

1) Best 3-Dimensional Brain Rendering
2) Best Representation of the Human Connectome
3) Best Abstract Brain Illustration
4) Best Comical Brain Illustration

Any neuroscientists out there with a penchant for beautiful visualizations?

bioephemera Fri, 05/06/2011 - 16:52

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Hack for Colbert! And education!

bioephemera — Tue, 12 Apr 2011 20:01:45 +0000

Hack for Colbert! And education!

Calling all dataviz peeps: you know you want to meet Stephen Colbert. All you have to do is win DonorsChoose's version of the Netflix Prize.

It's a contest called "Hacking Education". DonorsChoose explains, "We've opened up [our] data, and invite you to make discoveries and build apps that improve education in America. Help to shape your school system's budget by revealing what teachers really need. Build the first mobile app for hyper-local education philanthropy. We've got a list of suggestions to help get you thinking."

Good luck!

bioephemera Tue, 04/12/2011 - 16:01

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Codeswarms

bioephemera — Sat, 12 Mar 2011 09:08:13 +0000

Codeswarms

So lately I've been trying to understand open source licensing options for software code, which is hard, because I'm not a coder. (If I don't understand an xkcd, it's almost always because it's some sort of Python joke.)

Anyway, Michael Ogawa made some videos a few years back depicting the growth of various projects (Python, Apache) as various developers came on board and committed code to the pool. His Python video is fascinating; it starts in 1991 with Guido van Rossum, who slowly attracts other developers. Through 2000, you can easily watch individual participants come in and out of the project. But in 2000 - about 3 minutes into the video - the popularity of the language takes off, and the names and clusters of lights (representing documentation, core, and modules) become frenzied. Then Guido is hired by Google, and it looks like a bunch of fireworks:

ï»¿ï»¿ï»¿ï»¿

Ogawa's Apache video is similar, but it doesn't start out as a one-man show, and the participants are more classically internetizen-esque (a developer with the handle "rodent of unusual size" is a prominent player, and "life is hard, and then you die" shows up a bit later). The fireworks also start much sooner:

Jamie Wilkinson has done something similar with Wikipedia edits. Here's a "Wikiswarm" visualization of the edits to Barack Obama's wiki page over the period of October 2005-November 2008:

As with the Apache swarm, there are some interesting names at work - "Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters" stands out - but the really interesting thing is how a ring of regular editors close in around the page over time. I'm guessing (but only guessing) that's to maintain its integrity as Obama the politician grew more popular and his page became a bigger target.

You can learn more about code_swarm at code_swarm. (The code_swarm code itself is open licensed under GPLv3, but I doubt it'll ever get big enough to produce one of these videos.)

Thanks to Miles for the links!

PS. Matt also suggests this video, in which Michael Ogawa discusses his code_swarm project:

Thanks Matt!

bioephemera Sat, 03/12/2011 - 04:08

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